Now, I've known liars in my life. Their single core problem is not with themselves, but those around them. If they're never called out on their twisting of truths and fabrications, they simply continue to make larger lies.

Well, Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better.

Whew! That is ugly. Pictures are posted, with captions like: "Sarah's waistline never changed. Her wardrobe still remained tight and professional." Note the gratuitous insult to pregnant working women. They can't possibly dress in a professional manner. There are also enlarged photos of the 16-year-old daughter with comments about the shape of her abdomen. The whole world is invited to talk about that teenager's body.

Despicable, sexist trash. Shameful.

AND: ArcXIX displays a huge blowup of the picture of the 16-year-old and issues a faux-scientific opinion: "Bristol is pregnant in these pictures. She is not carrying belly fat, which grows outwardly wide, and does not become dome-shaped. That's because fat is generally evenly distributed around the abdomen and a fetus is not. Bristol's chest is sticking out, a normal body reaction when sucking in stomach muscles." Belly fat grows outwardly wide? Nonsense. People come in all different shapes, and female abdomens tend to protrude. If the girl was pregnant and inclined to hide it, why would she be wearing tight clothes and standing in proud half-profile? I apologize for asking that question, but I'm hoping to shake some sense into those who are pushing this story. They should be ashamed to stoop so low for the sake of politics. I doubt if the Obama campaign wants this kind of help, not that it's likely to be any help at all.

UPDATE: The first link in this post goes to a Metafilter thread that you can still read but that is deleted from the front page of Metafilter. The reason given for the deletion is: "you should probably keep this in the existing palin thread." Here is that first Palin discussion, which has 1420 comments as of Monday morning. Search on the page for the word "pregnant" to see how obsessed people have been about this. Since this thread was set up as a generic discussion of of Palin, it is a better gauge of the obsession. You can see how this issue popped up and seized the hive mind.

The modern Democratic party and the American left in general remind of nothing so much as the Communist party in the 1930s, able to trot out whatever argument with a straight and serious face, even if it means completely contradicting and tearing down decades of carefully constructed arguments.

"Stop prying into other people's vaginas, even if you happen to oppose them politically. What is wrong with you people?"

Well that sounds unAmerican if I do say so myself. Prying into someone else's vagina is a thoroughly American past-time, and one of the central themes of this blog. Cruel neutrality means prying into Republican vaginas too. And this may be a first where that sounds even remotely interesting.

Is this really all they can come up with? The left must be totally deranged. I read elsewhere today that Alan Combs had actually counted the months since the Palin's first child was born from their wedding date and came up with 8 1/2 months. He actually questioned the elopement reason of saving the cost of an expensive big wedding, stating that the reason for the elopement was pregnancy. Oh, really? I can't believe this crap. Totally and completely pathetic.

Palin could produce the birth video and the people pushing this meme would still be pushing it. This is just like Clarence Thomas. this is just like Ann Althouse. This is the left setting out to punish, slime, and destroy someone whose support they feel entitled to for the only sin that is unpardonable in Left Blogistan: independent thought. Palin is a woman; the left feels entitled to the support of women; and because she is off the reservation, they have to make an example of her both to punish her and deter other women from leaving the reservation.

It also proves that liberal feminists aren't interested in feminism or women, they're interested in liberalism and political power. I asked the other day how liberal feminists are going to feel about having to spend two months working to prevent the election of the first female veep, and that question's been answered: they've declared her an unperson and are hurling everything but the kitchen sink at her. Where are those staunch defenders of feminism - Jill? Amanda? Jessica? How would they react if Obama had picked Stephanie Herseth and the kind of attacks now levelled at Palin were being levelled at Herseth? It does not take much of an imagination to wonder why the dogs are not barking.

vbspurs said... "And if people think Obama, were he to hear of this attempted smear, would approve of these tactics, I think you have another thing coming."

One of Obama's stated reasons for refusing public funding was that McCain wasn't willing or able to control the vicious attacks that his supporters were going to run against Obama. Seems McCain isn't the only one with command and control problems.

We have several more hours to find out -- and then we'll have a benchmark to use for the weeks and weeks of Palin-boosterism that we can expect here. Will this be the high, or will Althouse go more and more overboard in her unqualified support the least qualified VP candidate in history?

Peter -- Maybe the right is just as guilty. The right in this country seems far more consistent to me, not to say entirely so.

At any rate, this odd ability to grossly contradict core beliefs doesn't apply to me. I find this whole charade embarrassing and appalling. How can people who have staked their whole world views on feminism turn around and charge that this woman must devote more time to things other than her career, or that she was somehow wrong to have made a decision about her own body and her own children?

Okay, I read the links about the baby, and let me unroll my eyes long enough to comment, even though it's tremendously rude.

What kind of airline allows to board a woman whose water has broken? I suppose she didn't tell them -- but what doctor would suggest flying for 6 hours (how long is the flight from Texas to Alaska?) after your water breaks? So that part of the story is suspicious but not impossible.

DS babies are not very common in 16-year-olds. That argues very strongly against the daughter being the mother.

As a former long-time viewer of All My Children, I can write the story: the father is a friend of the family who raped the daughter on the night of her birthday party. Expect the daughter to become a world-famous model and cosmetics mogul. The son will be forgotten until the daughter is marrying someone famous at which point he will show up at the church door. And he'll be pissed.

Before people start bizarre conspiracy theories that require one to believe that Palin is a liar, they should be required to submit "proof", not speculation. Don't Sullivan and his crew have a clue as to how stupid and petty this is making them appear

McCain vetting person: Sarah, do you have any skeletons in your closet, that sort of thing?

Palin: No.

McCain vetting person: Are you sure? We really want to avoid embarrassment.

Palin: I'm sure.

Given that you know that basic conversation had to occur, Palin and her entire family would have to be the most craven people in the country if any of this shit you lefties have thrown out there is remotely true. We are talking craven at the level of John Edwards here.

Think. I mean, we hear all the time about how brilliant you are. Why not use some of that awesome intelligence?

Victoria, sure, the Edwards rumor turned out to be true. How about comparing a paternity rumor that was patently false, and known to be false by the people putting out the story. That was the case when Rove and Co. smeared John McCain and his adopted daughter.

UWS guy said... If touting something (trig's birth) is a reason to positively vote for Sara Palin (which McCain camp has done) then why isn't it fair game to question anything and everything about trig?

"she has a down syndrome baby, we should vote for her" That is the line by the right. She made her baby part of her schtick.

Why was Chelsea off limits? When the Clintons were accused of pimping her out for their own goals why was there so much anger and angst? Why were apologies forced upon the man who said it? Why did the station apologize? Or are the sainted Clintons different? They pimped their daughter, we should have voted for her? Now I see the true pseudo-intellectual, whacko liberal hypocrisy at work. Leave the Clinton child alone, but pick on the handicapped child of a Republican. The Clintons made Chelsea part of their schtick; or seraglio.

This claim is already getting international press attention. I can't imagine Obama is pleased by this. It is getting to the point where he will have to publicly denounce these people in no uncertain terms. That is going to raise new issues about just how far his "over-enthusiastic" supporters will go and just how long the average American wants to put up with them.

In other news, I ran across this quote while perusing NRO:

Geraldine Ferraro: "I have to tell you, I got a phone call from my family too, and my daughter — the immediate thing was, 'Wow! McCain picked a woman.' I thought it was stunning when it happened, because it is so historic. The other thing I must say this is the first time that anybody who is in a national position, has publicly thanked me in 24 years." (FOX's "Fox & Friends," 8/30/08)

You can complain all you want about the religious right. You can hate them and believe whatever you want. They are not worked up as much now on gay marriage as in 2004, but they were then and it worked to the Republican's advantage.

LISTEN CLOSELY:

In the last 20 years, there is no group - NONE - that when it finally gets awakened to anger, that shuts down more Congressional Phone Linesor makes certain to get out the vote than the religious right. Many of them moved away from California to Texas, Idaho, and the South (which is part of why California is so fucked up financially right now).

But if you want to awaken that Sleeping Giant and insure in the next 10 days that Obama/Biden will lose by at least 4 percentage points come November, then please - - keep this line of rumor and "questions" going.

I've been defending basic human decency here so far, but I'm going to step back and let you do your best to get the religious right really fired up about this election.

Jesus. These are human beings, people. A 16-year-old girl. A 5-month-old baby, with disabilities, no less. A mother of five. Could we please, please, please, PLEASE try to recover some common sense and some compassion?

Jesus. These are human beings, people. A 16-year-old girl. A 5-month-old baby, with disabilities, no less. A mother of five. Could we please, please, please, PLEASE try to recover some common sense and some compassion? 8:52 PM

Not to the soulless ghouls of the left. Everything is fair game to them. They are evil and must be destroyed.

seven machos, I don't want them destroyed either -- these people are my siblings, my parents, most of my friends. But Christ, I didn't realize they were this far gone. Alex is right on one point at least: what the hell has happened to their souls?

I don't like how Andrew Sullivan claims that better vetting should have been done to clear up this rumor. Didn't McCain see Palin in Texas at the Governor's Association just before she gave birth? What more proof would he need? Andrew is just being evil, and not in a good way.

While I seriously doubt that life imitates Desperate Housewives, as we learned from Monicagate, it's not the crime, it's the coverup.

Why I doubt the Bree-baby subplot:

1. The photos don't prove anything. At six months' pregnant, a fit and trim cousin of mine barely looked like she had a carwax sponge under her shirt.

2. Boarding a plane to give birth in familiar surroundings, assisted by one's obgyn, surrounded by family and friends, sounds a hell of a lot better than delivering it on an emergency basis, out of town, among strangers.

After having four kids, a woman could be reasonably confident that she would have enough time to get back home before the baby popped out. The flight attendants wouldn't have noticed, because she probably had already tried to disguise her pregnancy, fearing the airline wouldn't let her on the plane going down.

3. The daughter's absence from school does not sound terribly significant. When my brother had mono, he was out of commission for months. He lay on the couch in front of the TV the whole time.

BUT, Palin did put her pregnancy in play as a point of contrast between her and Obama. Obama has been characterized as the pro-infanticide candidate because of his refusal to vote for the Illinois BAIPA -- which didn't pass till clauses d and e protecting women and their doctors were added, after he went to the Senate.

Palin is the "Right to Life" movement's poster mom, because she kept her Down syndrome fetus, even though mid-pregnancy diagnostic tests showed the fetus's affliction.

Now if she hadn't been tested because she hadn't been pregnant, she is a liar. Moreover, her Right to Life poster mom status goes "poof!"

And as Monicagate showed, America wants to know if their politicians have been caught lying -- even in the most personal and intimate moments of their family lives.

If the Democrats don't immediately cease with this, they will bury themselves on Election Day. Part of me wants them to continue so our victory will be bigger, part of me wants them to stop out of sake of human decency.

I can't believe the ghouls on the left after all weird trippy Clinton conspiracy theories they floated about in the mainstream media, the attacks on Republicans as being nazi appeasing terrorist loving flag burning faggots, that would now stoop to this. Amazing!

Good point, MC! Yeah, Obamers, this is change we can believe in: charging governors with lying about their teenager daughter's pregnancy and dragging the poor kid through the mud. That's awesome, dudes. Way to unite!

Peter: You seem to be suggesting that you understand why one campaign is doing it, because look what the other guys did.

For the record, I condemn both, but I wasn't a part of either situation. This is what I mean about being an independent person. If I had seen those flyers of John McCain holding Bridget, with the slur about "black baby" I personally would've ripped them apart, and fired off a huge post about it (had I been blogging in 2000).

This is what any self-respecting human being would do, when faced with the peddling of dirty smears.

I think 7 Machos already answered for all of us who think this way when he replied.

Isn't it fair to say that it's wrong for anyone to make up lies about a candidate?

Exactly.

UWS: No one hates you, at least I don't. I confess though that I personally am starting to think you lack compassion when you suggest people can only have decency when you know them personally. What's all that about?

So you would spread rumours about me since you don't know me personally? Man, that is messed up.

Alex: Please forgive me, but you're sounding really extreme. I too want her and McCain to win, now quite a lot.

But fighting volcanic raging bile with volcanic ragig bile on a blog just earns you the moniker of looney tunes.

*breathe deep*

I'm not perfect people. None of us is. But whenever Obama is attacked in another blog, I actually come to his defense -- see LFG when a poster there called him a Communist.

Maybe like UWS, I have a bit of a contrarian in me, and don't like to see things go off-balance. It's the Aristotelian in us.

But in my case, I tend to DEFEND to make it balanced, whereas others ATTACK.

The scorched earth tactics of politics leaves me cold. Anyone else?

...well, let me try to get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day. To Beth and others in harms' way, be safe. Good luck. God bless.

Maybe if you had started by saying that you were just doing a comparison of partisanship, we wouldn't have thought that you were in the no-level-of-morality-too-low-to-stoop-to group that keeps this thing alive.

Sigh. It's been widely reported that Palin knew about the Down's (when did it become Down?) during the pregnancy. Are we supposed to believe that they faked the amnio too and the doctors/nurses etc. are in on it?

I am reading rumors on the internet that Andrew Sullivan's medication is causing him to become prematurely senile and emotionally unbalanced. I think he needs to obtain an independent psychological/neuoralogical evaluation and post it on the internet before I will take anything he writes seriously.

Seven, here's a quote that puts the depth of the vetting in perspective.

Former House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican political leader who has clashed with Palin in the past, was shocked when she heard the news Friday morning with her husband, Walt."I said to Walt, 'This can't be happening, because his advance team didn't come to Alaska to check her out," Phillips said.

Phillips has been active in the Ted Stevens re-election steering committee and remains in close touch with Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other party leaders, and she said nobody had heard anything about McCain's people doing research on his prospective running mate.

"We're not a very big state. People I talk to would have heard something."

Few wanted to talk about anything else on talk radio Friday. Conservative host Rick Rydell said there are some benefits to the state, but it's a gamble for McCain to pick an unknown with what he considered "questionable vetting."

Victoria - actually I detest the politics of personal destruction more then anyone. But what's happened the last 2 days is beyond disgusting. I never thought the left could stoop so low. So I fight fire with fire. They send in the tanks, I deploy the nukes. The left escalated first.

Eli -- There are a number of laws that say what women can't do with their vaginas. You can't use them with an adult penis until you are 18 in many places, for example. You can't show them on the sidewalk. The list is long.

So, Eli, once again the pithy little phrase that sounds cute to you turns out to be shallow and meaningless when given two seconds of analysis.

Wow less than 60 hours after the Palin announcement, a regular, Sullivan, on the Sunday morning talk shows plays a role in spreading an unsubstantiated and ugly story. Has to be a new world's record even against a Republican candidate.

Can't wait til Matthews asks Sullivan about this on his Sunday show.

And the MSM wonders why its approval (trustworthiness) rating is even lower than George Bush.

This has to be the stupidest rumor ever mongered about a politician. First of all, there is zero evidence. She flew back to Alaska and her daughter missed school (which, by the way, I have no reason to believe, given the other misstatements I've seen made about Governor Palin by Obama supporters). That is not evidence; it does not make the proffered conclusion more likely to be true.

But that's not why it's stupid; that's just why its scurrilous. It's stupid because, if it were true, it would be a better story: She so believes in the sanctity of life that she supported her daughter in bringing the pregnancy to term and is now raising her grandchild as her own son.

If true, this would make her more popular with the Republican base and undecideds.

Now, I've known liars in my life. Their single core problem is not with themselves, but those around them. If they're never called out on their twisting of truths and fabrications, they simply continue to make larger lies.

Has it crossed peoples minds that perhaps Sarah sought to downplay the pregnancy as a gesture to mean this is not tragic, this is private. period the end.

This thread is moving too fast for me to keep my responses near that which I am responding to.

Seven, thanks for the kind words.

Meade, yes, I don't consider Moore to be on my side. I don't always have one side, anyway. My first vote for a US Senator was for Millicent Fennwick, and I have an unyielding hatred of Frank Lautenberg because of the way he smeared her. It takes no effort to convince me that Democrats will use sexist, misogynist tactics.

I have been critical of these questions since they started being raised, but I'm not the liberal pope.

Victoria, it was never my intent to justify these charges on the basis of the Rove smears on Bridget McCain in 2000. Just trying to put some perspective on it. These things have happened before.

With the Bridget smears, there wasn't much of a reaction on the right. There was a snicker, snicker, "that's politics for you" response.

I think the question itself is fair game -- if it turned out that Sarah was not Trig's mother, that means she is a liar who was willing to lie for political gain, pure and simple. But both the perpetuation of this conspiracy theory without evidence and the general tone of her attackers is disgusting.

PETER: Oh, I see. I rather doubt anyone here can deny that happens based only on some of the right-wing oddballs that pass through here from time to time.

At the same time, I find what Andrew Sullivan is obviously encouraging at the moment to be particularly despicable. Then again, I rarely read Sullivan any more. As you do, perhaps you would know better. If Sullivan was spreading this story on the Sunday morning shows, I hope someone had the decency to tell him to shove it up his ass sideways.

MACHO: Sorry about removing this post after your reply. I left a couple of words out so I thought I'd edit before anyone saw it and then the computer froze)

I suspect that this story will never fade among conspiracy minded fellows. It will be one more theory tacked on to the list: fake moon landing, 9/11 was an inside job, Kennedy wasn’t killed by the communist Oswald, and the latest one - Palin faked a pregnancy.

Sure, it is possible, but very, very unlikely. It is also possible for me to win the lottery next week, but I wouldn’t bet a cup of coffee on it.

Sadly, no amount of evidence will ever be enough to change the mind of conspiracy theorists. They will continue to believe regardless of the facts. Nothing has dissuaded their beliefs in the other theories listed above, why should this one be any different?

Oops! Seven --- on the rewrite I eliminated my reply to your question! Anyway, it was meant as an insult but I'm not so sure he might enjoy, so I guess I should withdraw that and just say I hope someone had the decency to say STFU.

Benjamin- The Kos post lays out a pretty good case. It's not "without evidence".

ALSO:

Ann showed her blogging genius for the way she handled this thread. She calls the issue "despicable, sexist trash" and "shameful" in her post. Then she provides a forum to go on with it, even delving into it herself with a further update.

It might be "despicable sexist trash" and "shameful"... but nobody can resist it either!!!

God this is getting sick but i am going to be intererested to see how Palin handles all this. They have to know the blogosphere is boiling over with all this crap. And she seems like the type that will come out like a mother bear..in full attack to protect her cubs. How she responds may speak volumes about who she really is...and at the same time...send shock waves across the left as they wind up sinking Obama.

As the father of 2 daughters I musy say that I am stunned by this development. Sullivan, a mainstream lefty asociated with big media suggests that private medical records be released to prove that the mother and not her 16 year old gave birth to a special needs child ("this can easily be disproved")? Can this really be happening?

If someone attemped to besmirch the honor of my family this way I would offer a corrective that would most certainly leave a mark.

Thanks, Peter. I wasn't asking you to apologize for Kos or Sullivan. I know you well enough after all this time. I avoid patronizing Sullivan's site when at all possible, but I know you do so I was wondering if this had become his common practice. I read the other Atlantic contributors and was reminded of the most recent post by Jeffrey Goldberg when this post here came up.

UWS guy -- there was ample evidence for Edwards having an affair -- and it was boycotted by the press. And it turned out to be true.

3 differences right there: No real evidence; the press will be all over this, so the damage will be done whether it's true or not; and it's not, as anyone who's not a total idiot would realize after 3 minutes of thought. Look at the photos. Think about all the people (doctors, etc) that would have to be in on the conspiracy, and for what gain?

Sorry that I am late to this thread since I was at the pool enjoying myself like most of America on a Sunday afternoon.

So this thread and the one from yesterday really, really shocks me.

UWS guy, my interactions with you have always been fun. I don't hold much sacred in this world and love to bust balls with the best of them. And I love to tease and stir the shit. But sometimes it's beyond the pale. Really. I always thought you to be a decent kinda guy. But claiming to be the devils advocate in this case doesn't cut it here. To me anyway. I don't know Sarah Palin. I don’t much like any politicians. But I would feel the same if you talked this way about Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer or Cynthia Mckinney. And their retarded kid. And their sixteen year old daughter some things are not right. Some things are not decent. To facilitate this kind of bullshit is just wrong man. I thought better of you. I hope I was not wrong.

To all the Sara Palin supporters here lemmee just say relax. This is proof positive that we're winning. Adding to the winning, the normal folks out there are and will be revulsed by this attack on the daughter, Sara, and this family. The losing will only accelerate.

Seven -- there's no way that sexism is dead in this country. But I think that the Palin vice presidency will really move us in that direction; and if she ever becomes POTUS, I hope to watch her oath-of-office with my two daughters.

God this is getting sick but i am going to be intererested to see how Palin handles all this.

I'm actually more interested in seeing how Todd Palin handles this smear of his wife, oldest daughter and youngest child.

I'm thinking a punch in the face and a kick in the nuts would be in order.

I wonder what other demented and disgusting ideas the left can come up with. Ooooooh I know. The baby is really Track's with his own sister and that's why he is being sent to Iraq. Can this get any more sickening? I'm afraid it can.

However, as I said in a previous thread....just keep it up you leftist moonbats. The American public is not being swayed to your side by these tactics. Keep it up.

UWS guy (and others). Former law student picked up my comment above, but others are still obsessing with photos and debates about the distribution of teenage body fat.

The obvious counter to this vile and stupid smear is in Trig's Down syndrome, stupid. Prenatal diagnosis involves amniocentesis. For Palin not to be the mother would require her to either have a leak-proof cabal of doctors, nurses, techs etc, or to have somehow guided the ultrasound and the amnio needle into her daughter's womb undetected.

This is a conspiracy theory so dumb that it makes the 9/11 truthers look like rocket scientists.

4. Why would a woman trying to conceal her daughter's pregnancy lie about having amniotic fluid leakage, raising the whole line of questioning about (a) not going to a Houston emergency room right away, and (b) bypassing Anchorage hospitals for her own home hospital and obgyn?

Bottom line: Mrs. Palin's story about her flight home cuts in favor of her being pregnant, because it raises questions.

The left should keep it up. This kind of stuff will only motivate conservatives to volunteer come this October.

The one thing Bush had going for him in 2004 was the great ground game. Conservatives have been cool about McCain and the ground game was suspect. Palin has changed all that. Viscious attacks on Palin will only make McCain's ground game better.

This is proof positive that we're winning. Adding to the winning, the normal folks out there are and will be revulsed by this attack on the daughter, Sara, and this family. The losing will only accelerate.

enigmaticore -- I guess I see your point; but I don't know that this charge would absolutely never be levied at a man. Suppose a male pro-life candidate had chosen, with his wife, to bring a Downs baby to term. Might they still have tried to trot this sort of ugly accusation out there, in order to undercut the candidate's lack of hypocrisy on abortion?